It’s almost time to celebrate America’s 250th birthday — but let’s not forget it’s greatest city

It’s national party time

Happy birthday, America. July Fourth, we are 250 years old.

And congratulations to Mrs. Pelosi and her hairdresser who were probably around here right from the beginning.

And look at New York’s progress. When the foreign Dutchmen arrived, they spoke lousy English and wore shloompy pants. Today walk on the street and get what? Everyone’s speaking lousy English and wearing shloompy pants.

New York — America’s first capital, land that we love — is still the place of opportunity. Everybody can become a taxpayer.

Thanks to babbling Zero Crapdammy our citizens might now wear this year’s clothes and live on next year’s earnings.

Old? Please. Even our TV news anchors’ hairpieces have turned gray. Even Gracie Mansion, which shipowner Archibald Gracie built in 1799, is getting on. Even our former Gov. Eliot Spitzer now possibly maybe could be peels off his long black socks during sex.

So how did the mightiest city on Earth begin?

Since I was there at the start, I know. 1664 to honor the Duke of York it became the province of New York. We do not confuse this with England’s bad boy the current Duke of York who just got bumped and now isn’t. So forget him.

We’re always ready to trade up

Our old beginning New York was unclean disorderly — unlike today’s modern unclean disorderly New York. But the Dutch trappers were aging, they no longer wanted their beaver pelt cash stashed inside wooden shoes. They needed stuff unloaded. Money. Guilders. So to navigate this new land came streets. Straight lines. Forget Broadway, which is as straight as a few of its commissioners.

Of course they didn’t think of traffic, bicycles, deliveries, ambulances, visiting presidents, double-parked cars, cranes. Then there’s The Bronx, Brooklyn, parking around Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden, Queens, Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Lexington Avenue, uptown, downtown, crosstown, GW Bridge, Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, Freedom Tower, Brooklyn Bridge. Plus skyscrapers, Staten Island, Ellis Island, street food, Michelin-starred restaurants, best bagels, best steaks, best cheesecake and — if you’re lucky — a recorded speech by Mrs. Crapdammy. 

Started here

Wait. How about AT&T, which got itself together here. Or our famous library lions. Or Wall Street. How about Knickerbocker beer, the Ruppert Brewery, opened 1867. Manhattan? Smallest chunk of this state yet it controls world neighborhoods. Don’t like it? Then move to Kansas, which nobody will notice and whothehell cares. Fashion? We are not talking downtown Arkansas. Little Italy? Please, we got more people than Sicily.

No city limits

Meanwhile, note that the first apartment got itself built 1869. Also that year brought a rocking chair which you can get in but not get out. Even if you need to tenderize your Cream of Wheat, you know that Hunter College opened in NYC in 1870. Also, that’s about when we even got oyster bars.

New York University? Trust me, it did not begin in Kentucky. Metropolitan Museum of Art 1870. Lincoln’s first visit here — 1857. The subway system? Oh, please, forget about it.

So, happy birthday, America. And where will the big celebrations be?

Only in New York, kids, only in New York.